Chapter 25
Lynn
Darkness drowned me, but I’d learned to breathe within it.
It was a part of me now. Or maybe it had been for some time.
I’d lived in Hell, and taken part of Hell into myself.
I never stopped fighting, not for a single fucking minute.
I ripped blood and flesh from whatever limbs dared to come near me, kicked and punched and spat even as growls and barks pressed me into submission.
The past and present overlapped. I knew I was drugged and woozy, weak on a grimy mattress in a dark basement, but I could feel the clasp of wood around my wrists.
I could smell the dirty hay of the barn.
And I drowned. Choked, coughed up black water and blood when I bit my tongue, and I fought. And fought.
Soon. I could stop fighting soon, when the Knights found us, when Cobra found me.
Any minute now. It must have been a full day since these fetid, stinking rapists abducted us. Cobra would be here soon, so I kept fighting, and fighting.
And fighting.
And drowning.
And choking down sobs that built in my chest as familiar pain pulsed inside me, bruises and tenderness painted all over my body.
After an eternity, I let the darkness cover me, let it absorb me, choke me, fill my brain, and then:
“Hey, asshole.”
I sucked in air, clawing my way to the surface.
“It’s me.”
Cobra. He was here. It was over.
It was over.
I punched my way through the darkness, testing the mobility of my body. My mouth was full of blood. Pain blazed in all the places I expected. I ducked in a sharp breath when I moved, pulling my brutalised body upright. My hands shook, but my fingers were whole. Not broken.
My bottom lip caved in, quivering uncontrollably. I was whole.
I choked back the lump in my throat when I lifted my head and saw Cobra stalking across the dark basement towards me, the scent of leather and rum and blood joining the traumatic scents soaked into the mattress.
“Took your fucking time,” I said, my voice cracking. I could almost hear my threats, my screams, and my sobs in that ruined voice. But it was over. Cobra swam in my vision until I blinked, and found him closer. “Go help Jessia, I’m fine.”
Our eyes locked. There was no way to read the storm in his eyes, no way to untangle the knot of his emotions. A lump formed in my throat.
Please, I begged him silently.
I’d fought the whole time, but Jessia was different. She’d been silent for hours. Maybe a whole day. And at first, she tried to purr them into being gentler. I was so afraid my friend was broken. So afraid she was—gone.
Cobra clenched his jaw, his body language screaming how little he liked it, but he turned towards the mattress where Jessia lay.
God, someone had killed the man who’d been assaulting her.
There was a hole blown in his face. Had Cobra done that?
Blood covered Jessia as she lay staring at nothing, and for a moment I wanted to scream at the vacantness in her expression, but then her chest jerked with a breath. No, a sob.
I buried my face in my hands, tears scalding my eyes as they slid down my face.
Cobra’s boots scuffed the filthy floor when a low, menacing voice lashed through the basement. I dropped my hands and sniffled, blinking through the veil across my eyes.
“Do not. Touch her,” Devil growled, his voice like I’d never heard it before.
“Jesus,” Cobra breathed, lifting his hands and backing away from Jessia. He held himself carefully, like he thought Devil was dangerous. I didn’t care if every one of the Knights had suddenly become mass murderers overnight; they were here, and it was over.
I pressed my hands flat to the mattress, my nose wrinkling when I touched a wet patch. Blood. There was blood on the mattress. I staggered to my feet, my hands shaking but unbroken, my body shaking but unbroken. I bit my bottom lip to stop its wobbling, tears burning my eyes again. It’s over.
“Lynn,” Cobra rasped as he finally reached me. His eyes were as haunted as mine must have been, his expression like nothing I’d seen on his face. He was caught halfway between murder and crying, his brow pinched, eyes big and lined with silver.
I exhaled a hard breath, just managing to stop it twisting into a sob, and like he’d been waiting for a sound, for any sign, he pulled me into him.
His hand moulded to the back of my neck, his arm settling delicately against my bare back.
He’d pushed back the sleeve of his jacket, so his skin touched mine, the comfort of it so profound that my legs buckled.
“I’ve got you,” he croaked. “I’ve got you, and I’m not letting go fucking ever.”
It was part threat, part reassurance, and there was no way to contain my sob this time.
“Not fucking ever,” he reiterated.
“I know,” I rasped, my head resting over his heart.
The pain, the slick fluids coating me, the screams and pleas echoing in my ears, the feeling of them all over me—I could endure it, survive it, because I wasn’t alone.
I never would be. He wouldn’t let me out of his sight for a single moment, and I clung to that fact.
“Asshole,” he rasped, kissing my head and not seeming to care about the dirty state of my hair. “Is that a severed dick I see?”
I burrowed closer to his chest, trying to laugh, trying to smile at least. I managed a nod. I wanted to go home. I wanted to curl up in his room and never leave again.
“You’re incredible,” he breathed, hoarse and ragged. “I am so goddamn proud of your strength. But you never have to be this strong again. I swear, vow, promise, threat—whatever word is the strongest. Never again.”
My bottom lip shook, tears flowing freely. Never again.